You Have a Match(61)

But instead of knocking me off course, the ache grounds me. Gives me something to level the distance between me and these absolute strangers. They knew Poppy. They understand how special he was.

I forge ahead.

“You could come by,” I offer. “Before it sells, I mean.”

Dale lets my shoulder go, and Pietra takes an uneasy half step.

“I don’t think your parents would like that.”

I shake my head. “They miss you.”

Pietra lets out a shuddering breath that might have started as a laugh, looking up at the sky. I watch her carefully, this woman who is clearly frazzled within an inch of her life, and I’m hoping she’ll tip over and accidentally reveal something else and also hoping she won’t. The closer I get to knowing, the scarier the knowing seems.

“They said that?” says Dale.

I turn to him. “Yeah.” A lie. “Well—I know they do. Last night…”

“Abby, honey, we appreciate what you’re trying to do. You and Savvy,” says Pietra. She has the same borderline desperate look my mom had, and just like that, I feel myself losing my nerve. “But you have to understand that what happened was—it can’t be undone.”

I can’t believe that. I actively have to not believe it. Savvy and I may be related, but my parents and her parents—they’re family. Or they were, once. One look at that wedding photo, one glance at the faded magpie charms, is all it takes to know that. And to me, that’s the thing that can’t be undone.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened, I just…”

Pietra starts walking again, slowly, with more resignation than anger. “Don’t be sorry. I know Savvy put you up to this.”

I open my mouth to protest, but I catch the knowing glint in her eye. It makes me smile, and then she’s smiling back—I’ve been caught out, and we both know Savvy too well to pretend otherwise.

Still, she hasn’t fully caught me. She thinks Savvy put me up to finding out the truth. What Savvy put me up to was finding a way to get our parents in the same space together.

“At least consider going to the Bean Well closing party at the end of the summer,” I say quietly. “If you really did spend time there, Poppy would have wanted you to come.”

Pietra opens her mouth—to gently shut me down, I’m guessing—but Dale says, “We’ll consider it. But only if you put some of your photos on display for the party. They really are quite stunning.”

“You’ve got your grandpa’s eye for light,” Pietra agrees.

I try not to let the embarrassment swallow me whole. But it’s a different kind of embarrassment, maybe. There’s a thrill beneath it, humming under the surface. Like maybe they mean it. Like maybe I am as good at this as Poppy was always saying.

“You knew him well?”

This time I’m not asking to pry. I genuinely want to know.

“I worked for him.”

I try to swallow my surprise, but I’m not sure how effectively. She’s not looking at me though, her eyes and thoughts somewhere else.

“But you’re…” I duck my head, knowing there’s no way to end that sentence without sounding rude.

“I found myself like most girls in their twenties do, having a rough patch.”

Whatever it is couldn’t have stuck too badly, because she seems almost nostalgic about it. Just nostalgic enough that I decide to push my luck.

“And that’s how you met my mom.”

She turns her head to the opening of the trail, which has appeared in front of us sooner than I expected.

“You remind me of her.”

I hold my breath so I don’t laugh. I’m nothing like my mom. She’s organized and whip smart and—well, a lot more like Savvy than like me.

“Blunt,” Pietra clarifies. “In a good way, I mean. You seem like someone who says what they think.”

Well, she’s wrong about that, if the last sixteen years of my life are any indication. But maybe that’s starting to change.

“I think you and my parents should talk out whatever happened.”

Dale lets out another sigh from behind me. “I think we should table this discussion for a time when we’ve all had a chance to cool off.”

Pietra has already shifted gears, going back into mother hen mode, squinting at the cut on my face. “Maybe some turmeric,” she tells me. “It’s a natural antibiotic, and I definitely have some in the first aid kit in the car. Oh, and coconut oil, to prevent scarring.”

“You’re going to smell like a farmer’s market when she’s done with you,” Dale informs me.

I nod, following them to their car. Considering there is about a bajillion years’ worth of science behind the perfectly good modern medicine just down the path at the camp office, it doesn’t make much sense, but one thing does: I know exactly where the roots of Savvy’s Instagram came from now.

And, as if conjured by my brain, there is Savvy, flanked by my parents. Pietra is elbows deep in her first aid kit, and Dale is crouched to let Rufus lick his face, so I’m not expecting them to pop up as fast as they do, or the low “What the fuck?” that comes out of Pietra’s mouth.

Then there’s a “Shit” and a “Hold on” and “What were you thinking?” until Savvy and I can’t keep up with who’s saying what. Our eyes connect, and through the chaos, there is a pulse of understanding that goes deeper than friendship, deeper than sisterhood: it is the pulse of understanding between two people who are simultaneously and extremely fucked.